Gears 5 takes risks, more than just dropping the “of War” from the title. There are structural changes so that developer The Coalition can sincerely call this the biggest Gears game ever. In service of that goal, it works. Gears 5 feels huge at times.
But, in service of feeling like a Gears game, sometimes those changes are too much. Gears 5 strays from its roots and that’s commendable. But there’s also a cognitive dissonance when the formula feels different from what we’ve come to expect from Gears over the past 13 years. Sometimes bigger isn’t better.
Source: Destructoid Review in Progress: Gears 5